hello. you're watching "worldwide exchange." i'm ross westgate. the headlines today, more warning signs from china. the latest pmi showing consistent increase in manufacturing. slowing in germany. japanese stocks slip as the rbase higher. the latest tankan survey shows business sentiment now worse than when sales taxes last hiked in 1997. and european finance ministers

are arriving in athens showing cautious optimism about the health of the economy. these things are looking better. >> i shared optimism of the greek government, which is that they would like to access the program. whether it's possible, i think it's too early to say. as you know, the program runs right up until the end of this year and will decide later on this year what the future will be. >> and a grilling on capitol hill, questions on how safety standards were allowed to slip as gm recalled another 1.5 million cars. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. and a warm welcome to today's program. we start off with the latest pmi data out of the eurozone. we had the flash numbers a while

ago. the manufacturing pmi down to 53. that's what the flash was. it was 53.2 in february. the pmi output index is up to 55.6. that's a little higher than the 55.4 flash number at 65.3 in february. and the pmi output prices index, 49.3 as spec'd in the flash number. the german pmi, worth pointing out a short while ago, came in weaker than the flash march manufacturing 53.7. french final manufacturing pmi, 32-month high, 53.1, higher than the flash 51.9. so the french number come in better than the flash number. and the italy march manufacturing pmi, 52.4. it was a 52.3 in february.

germany just nudged down from that flash number. euro/dollar is up at 1.3792. about the highs or the session. post that eurozone inflation number, joining us with his thoughts, sean hardy, head of fx strategy at saxo bank. john, very good morning to you. so the pmi has been confirmed a little stronger, particularly in the likes of france and italy, which is fairley supportive. on the other hand, we've got an inflation print half a percent. how do you square the two out? >> yeah. if you look at the -- some of the peripheral pmis to be taken with a grain of salt. we have to worry about how these economies are doing. these are comparative surveys. i think the german survey is rather interesting coming off. that's a rather large revision from the flash number in march. losing momentum in germany,

you're likely to point out the inflation level. the core level hitting close to those all-time lows. and i think the ecb is watching that figure with extreme interests. >> what will it take to move the ecb and actually to move the euro lower? on the one hand, we've got spreads on ten-year government debt out at emu records as i understand it. but there's this huge flow, of course, coming in to peripheral debt, which i guess is what's helping support the euro. >> that's exactly right. that was the point i was going the make. it's a slow consideration. i think the ecb is clearly gearing up with a plan to do more policy accommodations this the year. if the inflation numbers continue to fall, you can't have the inflation in spain with the debt levels it has, etcetera. as we move forward, we're looking forward to the ecb. normally from a relative central

policy angle, you would expect that to be negative for the euro. but because this makes european assets look so positive. as you point out, peripheral debt that i think is a consideration that's keeping the euro from falling from this likelihood of qe angle. >> yeah. and, of course, the flip side of that is you would have said, okay, we'll be pricing in fed hikes next year. do the yellen comments from last night change your view on that or not? >> i'm not so sure what the purpose of those comments were. on the surface, they looked extremely dovish. but this wasn't meant to be any sort of main policy speech. you would expect comments like that to come because the market was begin to go show signs of unrest about excessive hawkishness. i don't think that's the case. i'm willing to toss those aside from now and see what comes income. by the same token, qe and

european asset prices, fed policy withdraw in the u.s. perhaps scares international investors/global investors away from u.s. assets. let's talk about china. let's recap this. we saw a weakness in china's manufacturing pmi. it both shows there is still trouble on the factory floor. some government economists think authorities have tarted boosting spending hoping to put a floor on the pmi. came in at 50.2, a pick up from the february number. but the renminbi has weakened against the dollar for the second month in a row. how do you divide the tea leaves here? >> well, i think china is always a special case in terms of dividing the tea leaves. those official pmis, i think

that's a bit more sme. i look at the hsbc one for more of a reading on the chinese economy. i think the chinese currency is trading on a different dynamic and that's about the chinese regime wanting to get in there and interrupt this enormous dollar/renminbi carry trade we've had over the last couple of the years. i think they've done that. you see headlines about the billions of dollars of losses being imposed. i think that's part of the dynamic. they want to make sure it's a two-way market to prevent excessive -- >> take there. meanwhile, we have news coming out from the financial.com authority. it says the biggest changes coming from payday lenders and debt management companies. it's taking over regulation of kuhn assumer credit firms. research shows 9 million people in serious debt and 1.8 million people in denial. they offer some form of credit

to uk consumers will now be subject to the fda's consumer protection and principals for business. the ceo says we won't shy away from taking tough decisive action to make sure people relying on these products are treated fairley. so the payday lenders will come under much more scrutiny than before. more to come on that. meanwhile, just over an hour and seven minutes into the trading day in europe on. advancers really outpacing decliners by a ratio of 8/2 at the moment, as well. the ftse 100 yet was down some 17 points by the end of play and fairley flat elsewhere. a really rather mixed session for the quarter with germany, france and the uk down. but we had gains from the likes of italy and spain. this is where we stand today.

the ftse 100 is up 0.5%. we can be looking at the services pmi coming out around the uk in 20 minutes. the xetra dax coming up around 0.5%. ftse mib up 0.4%. let's take a look. letto up 13%. shares in the group surging after newspaper reports weir group could be poised to take over the firm in an 8.5 billion pound on merger. down by 1 .5%. they could the pay as much as 30 euros per share. mean whie meanwhile, alstom is up nearly 6% today on its asset disposal program. we'll keep our eyes on gilt yields coming up.

moving on. waiting for that pmi data coming up in a short while. these are all the banks for the moment are up. let's move on to the bond world. treasu treasury, it's a very hard -- it's a very difficult graph to find, let me tell you that. treasury yields -- there we go. thank you very much. 2.74% on the ten-year treasury. we had dovish comments from janet yellen. that did just mean that the dollar lost a little bit of ground, not necessarily against the yen. we hit 103.44 dollar/yen which was a three-week high. today, 103.32.

we heard john talking about the impact on the inflation rate and the longer than expected data. so plenty going on in asia today. that china official pmi a little better than expected and the sales tax hike in japan. no better than that sri to run us through all the action. sri, good to see you. >> good to see you, ross. we were talking about this with john earlier. yes, the official number just above the boom/bust level of 50 for the month of march. the hsbc/pmi number did show some real stress. 48, well below that 50 demarcation at an eight-month low, as well. but look at the reaction on the greater china markets. the shanghai composite was up by almost 0.7%. the happening second, up by more than 1.3%. so at face value, it looks as though the markets are

gravitating towards the official number or the other reading here is that there is some undeniable stress in the chinese economy. iron ore prices, steel rebar prices and copper prices are certainly telling you that. so perhaps the market here is trying to front run expectations of further stimulus coming outs of beijing. what form it will take is anyone's guess at this juncture. but the market does believe that it is coming. let's move on and talk about japan. the nikkei 225 off by 0.2%. they seem to be taking the first day of the sales tax hike from 5% to 8% in their stride. having said that, though, the ten can corporate optimism seems to be taking something of a hit. we saw a fairley -- of numbers from the tankan business index. the big story there, once again, is stimulus.

is the bank of japan going to step up to the plate possibly sooner rather than later and deliver some stimulus to help draw the sting from those higher taxes? that's where we stand at the moment, ross. back to you. >> sri, good stuff. catch you a little later. john, if they do come out with more stim uulus, is it going to drive the yen lower? >> well, one would be if we see more concrete signs of economic weakness. the other being, ironically, if the yen strengthens because then we'll see the risks of that and to the economy and the policy targets. either route points towards bank of japan action. at some point, is it a question of timing. i would say mid-may may be a bit too early, but possibly over the summer, looking for another round of bank of japan stimulus as the process towards those targets falters a bit.

>> and the yen contributed from safe haven flows. bearing in mind, as you say, the policies that they now take, what are your targets? >> yeah. i mean, i still have a longer term target for a weaker japanese yen. i think position onning has gotten much more neutral. this appetite is stable, especially like we've seen here. recently, we could see another leg weaker. but anytime the risk appetite weakens, you could have this japanese strength. it's a tricky market where there's a potential for strengthening at any time where there's a clear fundamental set of circumstances leading for the need for a weaker jan niece yen in the coming years. >> john hardy, thanks for that. nice to see you this morning. now, till to come on today aes show, french president francois hollande is having a

meeting and we'll get a member with the socialist party. next week's election is a risk factor. we'll have the latest from mumbai. plus, obamacare sees a last-minute surge as the open enrollment period comes to an end. but has the program been a success for the president? i must begin my journey,

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european finance ministers arrival in brussels for the late latest. jules, good to see you. we see bond yields continue to fall again today. i suppose the question is operating that out from the sustainability of government debt. >> you're absolutely right, ross. questioning, being able to react to capital markets. they're talking about their

timely search this year. the crucial question is you can't rightly phase how sustainability. they're pushing for further write-down. but the key discussion that's going the happen for eu finance ministers today is addressing some of the social casts of the presence with the money and greece is perhaps the best example of the supplies. i'm joined by the man who is going to lead that discussion with the finance minister today. this is a little challenging, i think. what you're saying is that these countries need to address the lack of jobs, they need to look at the positive aspects of the security presence that we've had because they directly lead to sustainability and growth rather than the key to austerity going forward. talk to us about reports.

>> basically, we don't see the policy measures not just in greece, but in many countries of the eu. >> finance ministers would tell you that they are doing as much as they can and you are saying actually they're not. >> well, the thing is, you have to address the structure, labor market reform side and that's being done. but without demand, sufficient demand, you don't get job creation on a large scale. what can you do especially in countries that don't increase demand, get new jobs? that means european investment projects and similar things. >> that's your message today, then. not just what they're doing on a national level. demand policy is crucial. >> that's right. there needs to be a european demand dimension to the policy.

you need a eurozone budget that supports demand throughout the eurozone. >> and how likely is that, do you think, really? >> well, i think there's going to be a big pushback on this point of the eurozone. but at the same time, the discussion is not there. my role was to bring up this the point and make sure that the finance the ministers do discuss that because, again, it is true. a eurozone budget needs the fiscal year and we need property management. >> we are going to continue to hammer on the message. can i ask you about france that's struggling with internet reforms. >> the cabinet reshuffle is certainly a reaction to the poll rukt results. what you need is you need people to understand things are going forward, understand that reforms are being implemented, new jobs

are being supported. in france, actually, the fiscal side is pretty relaxed already. economic growth at the end of the day. >> what you're saying is it makes very little different if they don't implement the kind of reforms they need. >> no comment. >> we were talking earlier and he said he's far more worried about italy than he is france. given the level of optimism, interesting point to note. back to you. >> thanks for that. catch you a little later. more to come from jules and athens. mean highly, french president francois hollande has has named a new prime minister as part of a reshuffle.

stephane suggested he would be taking over yesterday. how big is his challenge, though? >> the pro business policies that were announced a few months ago, but still not implemented. they will have to lower taxes, find some significant tax saves. it will have to fix on fiscal justice. he will make an announcement, probably in the next few days. chief member of parliament for the socialist party. how can you lower taxes at the time you need to find 50 billion

in cost savings over the next three years? >> well, we need to lower taxes for companies and for -- to growth. it has been already renounced with the banks to lower by globally a billion u.s. contribution of companies to social security. and now we know since yesterday evening that we want to -- the president wants to lower the taxes on people. so i mean what we need to do is to -- growth this year and next year. that lowers the deficit. and at the same time, we want to make some expensive cuts. >> if you cut taxes to boost economic growth, it may take some time. do you think france would need another delay to cut the deficit to 3%? >> we're not asking for any

delays. what we want to do now is we want to foster growth and we want to lower deficit. and that's very urgent. we want to do that with a very important vote. we want to also increase the social justice. and so what we want to say to our european partners is we are very efficient. we have a new prime minister. >> we were in real urgency two years ago. it was unsustainable, clearly. so we needed to make something -- to stop to increase.

now under control, we still need to lower it when she's under control. we need to focus on education and employment. >> thank you very much, karen berger, for being with us. and the new prime minister we are expecting the composition of the next government perhaps as early as tomorrow. >> stephane, we'll see what happens. this is all happening, right inspect this isn't a joke, is it? this is real. >> no, it's not a joke. we have a new prime minister. >> i only say that because, as we know, april the 1st is today and you never quite know what's going on. we'll take this the one, first of all. as you know, we've got a referendum on scottish

independence. while it's a great story in the guardian, then they are going to switch to driving on the other side. this diagram, the cars would drive in some england. on the left. and when they leave to go to into scotland, they'll be driving on the right. i like that. very good. and the other one that i particularly like here, the queen drove into the back palace, they call it frackingham pallan. and samsung has prapged users, as well. they announced that they will be using pigeons to improve internet access in london. it will work by attaching small router packs to pigeons to create temporary mobile wi-fi

cover. samsung said it will nod im piece normal flying action. so that's some of the april fools' jokes that we've seen today. what's your favorite prank? what's your favorite april fools' joke? get in touch with us. worldwide@cnbc.com, tweet @cnbcwex or direct to me @rosswestgate. more april fools' coming up in just a few minutes. few minutes.

i dunno, i just ah woke up today few minutes. and i said i need something sportier. annnd done. ok maxwell, just need to ah contact your insurance company with the vin number. oh, i just did it. with my geico app. vin # is up to the loaded. ok well then jerry here will take you through all of the features then. why don't weeeeeeeeeeee go out to the car. ok, i'll just be outside... ok, yeah. his dad is my boss. yeah. vin scanning to add a car. just a tap away on the geico app.

more warning sievens from china as we see persistent weakening. higher sales tax comes into effect in japan. and the latest tankan survey shows a hike.

there is optimism in athens. >> i share the optimism of the greek government which is they would like to access the program. whether it's possible, i think it's too early to say. as you know, the program runs right up until the end of this year and will decide later on this year. >> gm's mary barra will be speaking on capitol hill today as gm recalls another 11 is.5 million cars. manufacturing eases to its lowest rate in months. manufacturing pmi 55.3 versus a downward revision in february. latest polls come in at 56.7.. it came in at 55.3 the. output, 57.7 versus 58 in

february. that's an eight-month low. manufacturing input prices, 45 points. it's the lowest since july 2012 versus 53 the.2 in february. so that suggests we're going to get even more of a fall in inflation. it is now below the 2% target, as well. it was paid slightly through march. weakening on the back of that. let me show you where we stand with equities and bond markets, as well. on the bond market, gilt should have got a bit of a boost from that and ten-year gilt yields, 2.76%.

3.25% for spain object just below that. on the currency markets, we saw sterli sterling. but euro/dollar, session highs at 11.3792. dollar/yen slightly higher at 103.33. today's hike is the first in a two-stage boost, set to take the levee to 10% by 2015. still less than half the rate in france. the uk, germany and china. this report from tokyo. >> japanese businesses are worried much more about a

fallout from the sales tax hike. this is a fresh challenge for the administration of prime minister shinzo abe who is facing skepticism about his economic policy. the bank of japan shows optimism among japan's manufacturers sharply faded. the diffusion index tumbling sharply. the concerns were pretty widespread, showing that the sales tax increase is a major test for prime minister shinzo abe. still, most economists say especially among some of the major corporations, profits are likely to be stable in the next few business years. >> i think there's a measure that says corporate japan maintains break even with about 80 and we're very, very low from that. business sentiment, i think a tien na consumption is quite

well, you know, well timed. there's a better time. you know, economy has been doing things well. over the course of the last two years, 2% is quite high. you saw with the major economy like japan. >> still, the tankan survey shows capital investment was up 0.11% this business year from a year ago levels. that means investments, new investment is going to be essentially flat. that poses a fresh challenge for the bank of japan and for the government of shinzo abe. back to you. >> the director for asian sales trading at pmi securities. andrew, good to see you. how long do you think before the bank of japan has to react? >> well, i'm sure they're going to wait probably a couple of months just to see the data the come through.

realistically, probably three to four months. that could be too the late in some respects. we're seeing the slowing from the tankan survey in the manufacturer's outlook. >> yeah, the -- is abe-nomics -- is it going to work? clearly, what this is going to do is it's going to put -- unless you get wages right, this is going to be more of a crimp on activity. >> i think you're very right. the only inflation we're really seeing at the moment is the cost side. the high costs of importing is starting to bite. and i think, you know, as you were mentioning on abe-nomics, we haven't seen an awful loss. the increase, we haven't seen any reform in the pharmaceutical industries and vice president seen any reform in the agricultural, either. without the moves, people are going to start questioning

whether there is any solid economics behind it. >> what does that mean for the equity markets? >> it's going to make it challenging. we see manufacturers are expecting the yen to start strengthening again. that is going to take away a lot of the -- in months. a fbi spokesman told cnbc it could occur if the information was received ahead of the market.

>> my view is that as long as traders are trading along the rules that we have set up in our exchange, we don't have to were about transparency or whatever. what effect transparency can extend is the the move of trading activity away from regulated exchange into pools or other crossing networks. >> i think it's a question of what kind of trade executed and what kind of trades are executed on a regulated transparent exchange. there are good reasons to have

some kind of trade, have an interest that they are traded in a darker environment. but i think the retail trades have to be executed on their regulated exchange. that's what markets are all about. >> from our colleague in the states, andrew ross sorkin, when he looks at the high frequently traders, he makes the point that there's an argument that exchanges are making money out of the system. when you look at the way some of on these traders work, is there a rush for real estate? to connect on the new york exchange, not less than a second. is there anything that you can do to control what happens external to the exchange? >> what do you mean by external? >> what i mean is that these trait traders have a so-called

percentage by putting that into the exchange. is there anything that you can do to stop it so the playing field is across the board? >> yeah. when high frequently trading came up, we set up a service called location. so we try to give the same technical possibilities to all our members. so it's up to them. if they use the service, they have all the -- >> and do you think the flash boys are controlling the market? cnbc.com. now, commodity prices are continuing to rally. u.s. corn 2350u6r7s hit a seven-month high after forecasts were below estimates. farmers will plant the smallest

amount of corn in four years. joining us with her thoughts, tamona gamborini. thank you so much for joining us. agricultural commodities pretty good gains across the board. is this due to -- >> weather conditions. >> having effects on commodities, as well, that's pretty much across the board. all the commodities were up year-to-date. >> and i was looking at this yesterday. we were talking to guests in chicago. extraordinary gains, up nearly 60%. >> we see italy overpriced at the moment, considering that supply in the market. so there might be a deficit at the end of this year, but stocks are still elevated and the weather improved and the cost

price already fell a little bit on the back of debt. obviously, that boost of crop and italy expected to be a good year. >> you talk about weather and rain in brazil. people are forecasting whether we're going to get this el neen know weather effect. is that being put into place at the moment or not? >> hardly. at the moment, the usda forecasts the el nino later on in the year. so at the end of the summer. >> which crops will be affected by that? >> they will all be affected in different ways depending on the progress of the el nino.

there will be some positive effects in the u.s., but there will be deaf the stating effects in asia and europe. the crisis comes off and -- >> so coffee might have a negative press. >> better crop conditions, weather conditions for the crops. >> sugar might have some -- on the back of the -- the rain when the crop is rated to be higher in brazil. so different impacts in different crops. >> it's hard for trade at the moment. >> yeah. it's a little bit early, actually. we don't think it's pricing yet.

so it might not occur. >> nice to see you. thank you so much for joining us. we'll take a short break. still to come, we're going to catch a ride to a horse racing event that's been under way for nearly 250 years. years.

the dollar is hitting a four-month high today. the official pmi data in china held up. the euro versus the yen at a fresh high that's at 95.7111. meanwhile, india's central bank has left rates unchanged today. the bank's governor says he

doesn't expect any further tightening in the near term. with india heading for elections, they're expected to wait for a glimpse of the next government's policies before making any further or fresh policy moves. >> it was a -- policy by the rbi. they've only eased some amount of liquidity. and that is actually on the fact that the rbi from the monetary policy. the rbi is seen to be very cautious on inflation. they did mention that the upside -- inflation still exists. india could possibly be affected.

on the monetary front. that, in fact, is ruled out as a possibly according to economists at least in the near term. what lies in the near term for the rbi is at least a whole rating from the rbi on rates and that it might even tight then rates based on the fact that as the up side to inflation. the theme and it's 6% by january 2016 because of this targeted inflation, they will be working, making sure that their monetary policy stand works towards that.

they did not expect any -- at least any sort of -- of monetary policy in the coming months. >> it's going to be a big story. meanwhile, on the agenda in asia tomorrow, they'll have to -- wednesday to see the search operation first hand. raaf based pierce alongside australia's prime minister tony abbott. on the corporate front, japan's fast retailing reports sales figures for march. and in sports news, serving up hospitality today, andy murray's opens up ahead of its official launch on friday.

the hotel is reportedly fully booked for the ryder cup. >> you can pay up to 90 points to the replica jersey with the enhanced cooling technology. there is a share price at around 60 pounds, which may be the slightly more popular one. different distribute the prize money and make sure the trainers get paid. it's at the heart of the horse racing industry for nearly 250 years. thanks very much indeed for coming in. james weatherby, he is the

generation? >> my father and i. effect hely, what was happening back in the mid 18th century is that owners were staking between 25 and 50 thousand pounds in today's money to run their horses in three years' time. and the jockey club asked my ancestors to get involved and basically look after the money and keep it safe. >> and he's been doing that far since, distributing prize money on some bookmakers? and that has evolved into become ago broader private bank? >> yeah. so effectively, we still distribute prize money today and have done, as you say. and every owner would have had an account with us or somebody else. and that money was then deducted, the intoe fee was deducted and prize money. so lucky enough to win and credited to it. and that in 1994 we got a

license for and then grew it out into a full service traditional private banking operation. >> and it makes sense to get a banking license, right? >> well, yes. >> when you launch it, you didn't set up -- you didn't open up branches. you got a traditional bank that run along sort of modern lines? >> yes. luckily, we didn't go off and buy all the branchs around the country. of course, that now has served us very well because now people just want to talk to you on the phone, they want to e-mail to you, get through to you online or whatever. our job is to communicate with them 24 hours a day if necessary and see what they want to do. >> the interesting thing is, you are a publisher of the general stat book. >> yes. >> which is basically a -- when we talk about big data, this is

the big data for horse racing. >> yeah. >> how do you live with that the? >> it's interesting. we own a starbucks in the uk and irela ireland. it was set up in 1890. and every stat is based on our data. the data itself from that star book is a not for profit operation. but the data we get from the breeding cited and the racing side, we package up and sell it to bookmakers all around the world, asia, america, china, you name it. and then we pull that together. if you're buying a horse at 6 million pounds, you want as much data as you possibly can. so we put the data in newspapers, online and -- >> and it goes into a mini heritage of the horses, whether they like right hand tracks, left hand tracks, every bit of analysis you could possibly look for?

absolutely. absolutely. and the key southbound, you know, for data, there's an unlimited appetite for data. that's very much our future. >> so how do you -- as we work towards that, how important is the grand national rating? it brings a lot of -- >> yeah. i think there's something like 6 million people to watch the grand national. it's about 150,000 people who attend the three-day festival. prize money would be in the region of 2.8 million pounds. this is the the first million pound grand national. so it is very important. i think if you are a jump owner, yes, you might want to win the gold cup, but equally, to win the grand national is something that is -- >> how is this as a jump owner from the flat?

>> i think they are a different breed. there is now more and more of a crossover. we just saw michael buckley, who is mainly a national hunt owner and he just won the derby in dubai and into madan. so they are a different breeze. i think they like to see themselves as more -- on the countryside. >> good to see you, roger. thanks very much. >> thank you very much. >> weatherbyes bank. we'll take a short break. let's remind you of the futures ahead of the second hour of "worldwide exchange" indicating a kick higher in the fresh trading day of the quarter. we'll be back with more right after this. after this.

welcome to "worldwide exchange." i'm ross westgate. more warning signs from china as the latest pmi data shows a persistent weakness in manufacturing. stocks slip as the rba tax hike comes into effect.

xx european finance ministers arriving in athens are optimistic about the economy. >> i share the optimism of the greek government, which is that they would like to access the program. whether it's possible, i think it's too early to say. as you know, the program runs right up until the end of this year and we'll decide later on this year what the future will be. >> and mary barra faces a grilling on capitol hill. she will face questions on how safety standards were allowed to slip as gm recalls another 1.5 million cars. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> and a warm welcome. you just joined us. welcome to the start of your global trading day here on cnbc in the united states. now, we saw u.s. equities close

out of the month and the quarter of march. the nasdaq having its worst month since the november 2012. but they did end up -- on the s&p for the quarter. the dow was down slightly. right now dow futures indicating higher by around 26 points. the s&p is just about 2 points above fair value as is the nasdaq. european equities have gone through the session a little firmer. the ftse 100 is off 0.5%. despite the fact that manufacturing pmi came in weaker than expected earlier this morning as did the german manufacturing composite pmi. we'll have better than flash numbers from france, shape and italy. nevertheless, the gains up 0.6%. the ftse mib up 0.5%. as far as the bond markets are concerned, treasury yields are where we stand.

2.7.% on the ten-year treasury following janet yellen's comments to support the growth for the rest of the world. and on the currency markets, the euro/dollar getting down to around 1.3797. yesterday lowered by the weakeren flagz number. and dollar/yen a little higher, 103.34. and the aussie/dollar has been up to three-month highs. .9265 is currently where we stand. we also had pmi numbers out of china which held up. the official pmi number held up. although the private hsbs dipped down even from the flash. let's get more on the reaction from that. sri has the latest for us out in singapore. sri. >> hi, ross. quite right. there was some dual alty associated with the numbers. but suffice it to say, the official number was constructed and the hsbc number at an

eight-month low. it looks as though the market chose to go the with the official reading and that's why the hang seng, taiex was in positive territory. hang seng was the standout with stock-specific stories. there were a lot of buying on the tips of tencent's stocks. bargain hunters coming in and scooping up that beaten down stock. but also there was a lot of demand for the casino chips, as well. so that brought up the broader index for the hang seng. elsewhere, the other top story was the data. the tankan survey coming out of japan was fairley down beat. that's his sentiment on the nikkei. it was the first day of the sales tax increase from 5% to 8% now. the market seems to be taking that in stride. 14,7911.

there are still some questions. yes, there is a stimulus package to try and offset the sales tax increase. a lot on of economist res asking whether that will be enough or whether the boj will have to step up to the plate sooner rather than later. >> sri, thanks for that. that's the latest of out of asia. growth in germany's manufacturing slowing to 53.7 and 54.8 in february. there were much better numbers elsewhere. manufacturing activity at its slowest rate in march. british manufacturing has slowed

to its coolest pace in six months. shouldn't be put off too much by the slowdown. sterling is a little lower on that news. as we just heard sri saying, the weakness in china's manufacturing sector, the official pmi number actually going up, ticking up but the hsbc number suggesting that there is some trouble on the factory floor. eunice yoon filed this report from beijing. >> the latest factory data the out of china shows that the economy has yet to bottom out. the official pmi, which is a gauge of the health of the manufacturing sector came in about flat for march, an expansion of 50.3 compared to 50.2 in february. a competing survey out of hsbc indicated a weaker showing. the worst performance in a year and a half. the official index tends to favor large state companies on the hsbc survey. that reflects business at smaller firms. overall, investors are

disappointed that the factories different do better. business picks up significantly in march after the long winter new year holiday. one bright spot in a march figure, export orders got a boost thanks to stronger demand for the u.s. and europe. eunice yoon, beijing. at 10:00, ism manufacturing and construction spending. the apollo group reports results after the close. automakers report march u.s. sales today. forecast calls for 2% year over year of growth following disappointing results in january and february. that's due partly to the impact of severe weather weather. joining us now, the chief economist at bnp paribas.

julia, always a pleasure to see you. this week, are we going to start seeing a soaring of the snow-affected data? >> yes. i think we are going to see some spring rebound. you mentioned the ism manufacturing this morning. we're looking for a rebound there. it's not going to on be an overshoot. we're not making up for lost time in part because we're working off inventories for a while. the auto sector is one sector where there's excess inventories that are probably going to take a few months to work off. but yes, i think we are going to start to see spring in the numbers throughout this week, including the employment report on friday. >> what do you think about that? 200,000? >> yeah. we're at 210,000, a little above trend, but it looks like it's overdue given some of the other market indicators, jobless claims, some of the consumer

surveys suggesting that the labor market is just fine and some of the weakness was either statistical noise or weather. one key detail of the employment report will be wage growth. that moved in the other direction. that was boosted by weak winter weather because people work fewer hours, their wage rates looked artificially high. that should revert to the other direction. that's important for fed policy as janet yellen highlighted yesterday. >> j yeah. just talk more about her comments. she talked about the extraordinary commitment to boost global economies going to be needed for some time. now, if she going to -- she said last week about rates going up, rpmqe. >> yes. the answer to that is yes, she is. she is sort of trying to undo that. it's not like six months is a crazy time frame for the fed. but i think all have to go perfectly well between now and

then to actually see that time frame. i think the odds favor certainly a later liftoff for rate hikes given the labor market. i mean, the labor markets, the job numbers look fine, but the quality of jobs is very poor. wage growth is extremely low. there's a lot of underemployment. and she really stressed that yesterday. until we see really much deeper, stronger momentum, much more absorption of the slack that's out there, they tend to be patient. >> all right. get a cup of coffee. we'll come back to you. some of the other stories we're following today, gm is recalling another 1.5 million vehicles worldwide because of on issues with the power steering. the automaker says it expects to take a first quarter charge now up to $750 million. and this latest action comes

with the house, energy and commerce committee holds a hearing on gm's recall of faulty ignition switches which has been linked to 13 deaths over the last decade. lawmakers say they want answers as to why gm engineers approved parts that didn't meet the company's standards. the gm ceo marry barra will be testifying today in her prepared remarks she doesn't offer an explanation. she says i can't tell you why it took years for a safety defect to be announced, but i can tell you that we will find out. gm's stock in frankfurt today off 1%. and the fbi has told cnbc that the agency is actively investigating possible abuses involving high frequently trading. the probe was reportedly launched around a year ago, but it's still in the early stages. at issue, possible violation of securities, insider trading laws. an fbi spokesman has told cnbc that abuses could occur if

certain traders got information ahead of the rest of the market. and citigroup's mexican unit bimimex reportedly fired two bond traders after uncovering rogue traders. the banking regulator is aware of the matter, which is aware of the matter internetly. they suffered losses from bad loans to home build eers and oceanography. citigroup is down 0.3%. and investors have filed a class action lawsuit against 12 banks for conspireing to rig the market. it includes u.s. city and pension plan, morgan stanley, rbs, hsbc, jpmorgan.

the suit claims the banks worked together to rip the markets as far back as 2003. meanwhile, european finance ministers have arrived in athens. what exactly are they doing there? let's find out right after this. . beautiful day in baltimore where most people probably know that geico could save them money on car insurance, right? you see the thing is geico,

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a new prime minister has been appointed in france. and general motors recalls another 1.5 million vehicles, this time the due to power steering issues. european finance ministers have arrived in athens during formal talks. points on the agenda would be weather the greek government implemented enough austerity to get the latest installment of its bailout. as they do so, greek yields continue to fall. jules is in athens to explain. what's going to happen on this trip, jules? >> thanks so much, ross. we're expecting to see provisional sign offs adjusted

to 8 billion euros that the greeks have been battling to get from the toik ka over the last few months. we're expecting provisional signoffs on that point. payment, of course, on the implementation which is the crucial risk here. but as you pointed out, 6.5% yields on the ten-year. you can't miss the sense of optimism from the officials here. but listen in to what the president had to say about that optimism. >> the share the optimism of the greek government. whether it's possible, i think it's too early to say. as you know, the program runs right up until the end of this year and we'll decide later on this year what the future will be. >> it's always a case of juggling the politics and the economics. what we did see was that the majority of this government shrink down to just two people. we head towards the european parliamentary elections. we see a push from the extreme

right and the leftist parties. i asked the president what his thoughts and message was to france as they try to reshape and reform a new cabinet. >> stick to budgetary targets and work on the reform side. for all of our countries, we are gradually moving out of the crisis. growth percentages are too low. we need to do more. we need to work on the stabilization of the budgets and at the same time become more competitive. that requires reforms in france. >> always the same message here from european officials as far as france is concerned. reforms, reforms, reforms. but the real message i'm getting here is what little good a cabinet reshuffle is going to be in trying to implement some of these bonds, given how far and how much they've struggled over the past year or so.

i know you're going to talk more about france with stephane. i'll head back to you. >> before we get to that, the ceo of the spanish bank says its u.s. unit doesn't need more capital part of the u.s. stress test, but they will have to improve and adjust parts of the capital plan to resubmit it to the u.s. at the time fed to get it passed. so neff to rejig it rather than get more capital. meanwhile, as you take a look at the dow jones stoxx 600, weighted to the upside today for european equities. currently advancers outpace decliners by nearly 7/3.

part of a government reshuffle. part of a string of heavy shuffles in the local election. stephane is in paris. he has tips. how big is his task? >> yes, indeed, the transition ceremony will take place in this afternoon. it's been announced this morning. and then they will announce the

new cabinet tomorrow. this will be the strategy for the next few years. manuel valls has not the support of the left wing party. because he has a lot of common points with the former french president, because of his ties also because of his hard line reputation. on the economic front, very much different than the previous prime minister. we know that is a reformist. he even suggested a few years ago to change the name of the french socialist party. so very much to what was implemented in the united kingdom a few years ago. so this is what we are expecting from him in terms of economic

policy. francois hollande announced yesterday three goals to the new prime minister. we asked him to implement more social justice, to give french people more spending powers with tax cuts and also to implement the fact of -- familiar with that the. the business policies that francois hollande announced in january, but still needs to be implemented. >> stephane, thank you very much indeed for that. that's the latest from paris. meanwhile, u.s. futures indicating we might get a move higher today. this is after u.s. equities. we saw the dow at 134. the s&p up 14. closing out the first quarter. the s&p right now up 122 points. nasdaq up 0.75. also helping, comments from janet yellen who said the u.s. jobs market is still fairley weak.

spooking in chicago, the fed chair says extraordinary measure res still required. >> recovery still feels like a recession to many americans. and it also looks like way in some economic statistics. at 6.7%, the national unemployment rate is still higher than it ever got during the 2001 recession. that's also the case in chicago, and in many other cities. >> julie coranodo is still with us. we talked earlier about how we thought the fed maybe got the wrong message a week or so ago. so what is going to happen? >> well, look, they were never going to take back six months. and six months is not an unreasonable time frame between the end of qe and the first rate hike. if everything goes absolutely perfectly well in the u.s. economy. and what janet yellen was highlighting is where they've been missing is on the inflation

side. there's been a delinking between progress on the unemployment point and wage growth. in other words, we would typically see a lot more wage growth now given how much the unemployment rate has declined and we just haven't seen it. that reflects all the of the slack that she highlighted and she gave very personal examples of people who represent the underemployed. and so without wage growth, we really are not likely to get inflation pressures building anytime soon. so why would a central bank raise rates without wage pressures and inflation picking up? so on i think that the chances -- six months is probably as early as we could imagine the fed going. and certainly more than likely it will be later than that. we still have our first rate hike from the fed in the first quarter of 2016. >> yeah. which is obviously a little different from where the markets have been getting to.

clearly. look, you say 210,000 jobs at this -- right. >> this week. and you talked about, you know, we've got to the look at wages. we did see pce drop down to fairley fresh lows. do you think we're at the bottom of the inflation cycle? >> we certainly hope so. the fact of the matter is that wages have bottomed out. they haven't started picking up. but they certainly don't seem to be slowing any further. so we seem to have a underage growth at 2%. we hope that that translate toes a floor under inflation. inflation sort of slowed very aggressively over the prior year. it's been kind of flat for the last 12 months. and so it looks like inflation has bottomed, although, again, that bottoming process may last a while before we actually see a move higher. so we expect inflation to be pretty flat for most of the

year. both headline and core inflation. >> okay. thanks for clarifying that. julia, good to see you, as always. >> thank you. still to come, gmc's mary barra prepares to tv regarding gm's delay on dealing with faulty cars. this as another 1.5 million vehicles are being recalled for fresh problems. we'll get more, coming up. get m. [ male announcer ] when fixed income experts... ♪ ...work with equity experts... ♪ ...who work with regional experts... ♪ ...who work with portfolio management experts, that's when expertise happens. mfs. because there is no expertise without collaboration.

this is "worldwide exchange." i'm ross westgate. the headlines from around the globe, more warning signs from china. the latest pmi data shows a weakness in manufacturing. activity in france, italy and spain are standing. although growth has slowed in germany. japanese stocks flip as abe's higher sales tax comes into effect. the latest tankan survey now worse than when sales taxes were last hiked back in 1997. mary barra facing a grilling on capitol hill regarding how safety standards were allowed to slip as gm recalls another 1.5 million cars. and an fbi spokesman tells cnbc that they are actively investigating possible abuses in high frequently trading.

>> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. hello and warm welcome to you if you've just joined us in the united states. very good morning to you. u.s. futures are indicating we're going to move a little bit higher this morning. this after gains yesterday for the dow of 134 points. but closing out the quarter in negative territory, snapping a four consecutive winning quarters for the dow. right now, called higher by around about 23.5 points. the s&p did management out -- in positive territory to five straight gains. its up just under two points higher. and the nasdaq, which had its worst month in stocks over 2012, up for the quarter. it's called higher at the moment by around a point, as well. it was up over a percent yesterday. european equities are firmer during today's session. the ftse yesterday was down 17 points, currently up 27. nearly .5% higher as is the xetra dax, the cac up 0.6%, the

ftse mib up 0.5%. pmi broadly better than expected, better than the flash numbers in france, italy and spain. but still well into expansion territory. an update for corporates, finish engineering group letta has confirmed it has received a takeover bit from its rival, weir group. metso is currently up 18%. reports were about an 8.5 billion pound merger. metso says it's not engaged in talks but is nower considering the proposal. weir group now down 2.6%. what are experts saying what investors should do as we go through this week. a lot of data on the board and, of course, the jobs number out at the end of it. here is a recall of some of the thoughts we've had today. >> we look at the series of corn

for the new price and look to see that it is very much towards incentivizing farmers to produce soya beans. corn has been pretty high. i think it's sending the right market signals. otherwise, you could get quite high. >> we've lost the overhang risk in the last couple of years. there's been a lot of shareholder reshuffling improvement of liquidity. and of the multiples relative to their -- >> we like the energy sales at a reasonable price. very attractively priced. and the problem with many incomes, they're overpriced.

>> now, the fbi has told cnbc that the agency is actively investigating possible abuses involving high frequency trading. the trade was reportedly launched around a year ago, but it's still in the early stages. at issue are possible violations for securities and insider trading laws. an fbi spokesman told cnbc that abuses could occur if certain traders got material information ahead of the rest of the market. and earlier on the channel, we spoke to the ceo of the group which runs the swiss stock exchange about what he thinks of high frequency trading. >> my view is that as well as high frequency traders are trading along the roads that we have set up at our exchange, i think there is no -- we don't have to be worried about transparency or whatever. you know, what effects transparency to the a much bigger extent is the move from -- the move of trading

activity away from regulated exchange into other crossing networks. >> ahead of the swiss stock exchange, joining us is alex professor ott the mcquarry graduate sdool of management. he's been conducting an investigation between high frequency trading and volatility. thank you so much indeed for joining us. >> good to be here. >> you think high frequency trading reduces volatility in stock markets. how so? >> we examined australian/u.s. french markets and uk markets over periods of time when high frequently trading was on the rise. and we could find no real evidence of an association between volatility and high frequency trading. i mean, we examined this with some hard data.

>> and does it have any impact at all? >> we looked at -- we also looked at liquidity. and by and large, the evidence that we were able to assemble seems to suggest that increases in high frequency trading can improve liquidity. more recently, some of the work we've done have looked at the marketplace. we've found that institutional traders of the large institutions may have suffered over the period that high frequency trading was on the rise in the sense that their transaction costs may have increased. >> okay. what you can't do is break out there are different types of high frequently traders.

what you can't do is take that out, though, because -- >> yes. so there's m different types of high frequency traders. the only thing we could look at was the entire pool of on hft. so the kinds of questions we asked were is this entire pool of high frequency trading, whether it be an intrimt traeri trading, market trading, whatever, arbitrage, whatever, whether the pool in aggregate was having an effect on the marketplace. that's right. but what we have done is we've been able to look at various segments of the marketplace and we started with institutional traders. and found those very surprising results. >> and did you find the institutional traders could front run the market? the exchanges have set up so they can get information quicker than anybody else. they charge money for it.

so the system is geared, isn't it, to being faster and better than others. and if you can do that, you get the market intelligence advance, don't you? >> absolutely. there's no question about that. so institutions, fund managers, money managers, what they've done is they've invested significantly in their technology to try and beat high frequency traders and try and avoid incurring excessive costs through potential comments front running by these high frequency traders who are there and are trying to detect whether someone in the motorcycles plate or a segment of them is trying to detect whether someone is in the marketplace trying to execute large trades and trying to get ahead of that. >> alex, thanks for joining us. cast your vote in our online

poll@cnbc.com. some of the other stories we're following today, large investors have filed a class action suit against banks for conspireing to rig the global foreign exchange markets. ubs, goldman sachs, morgan stanley and hsbc. citigroup's mexican unit banamex reportedly fired two traders after uncovering rogue trading. they suffered paper losses that ran into tens of millions of dollars. banking regulators were aware of the matter. some citigroup officials are asking whether the fed's decision last week to reject its capital plan was linked to

bamamex, which also suffered losses from bad loans to home services. and a u.s. job judge says misleading about its ability to manage risks. the judge says shareholders can't pursue claims knowingly fit the risky moves with the bank's chief investment officers have taken in early 2012. jp morgan chase stock up 0.4%. and up next, find out why mark zuckerberg and cheryl sandburg are bringing home a little less bacon. details on the drop in pay for top executives, coming up. up.

a recap of the headlines, japan hikes its sales tax. and a new prime minister in france as reactions of voters. and general motors recalled 1.5 million vehicles, this time for power steering issues.

and just a reminder, chinese leader xi jinping is currently visiting europe. he's in brussels addressing eu leaders. you are looking at live pictures. now, mark zuckerberg, meanwhile, has been busy lately. forking out billions to buy whats app and oculus. but while he's spending facebook's cash, he's not taking home quite as much money. kayla tausche is joining us from cnbc's headquarter q. what's going on with his pay packet? >> mark zuckerberg wasn't taking home as much money. he took a decent pay cut last

year. his total compensation fell 67% to about 653,000. he took a bail salary of $11. he didn't walk away completely empty handed last year. he reached more than $3 billion from exercising stock options. zuckerberg is not the only one who saw a smaller paycheck. cheryl sandberg's pay fell 38% due to lower stock awards. she is still the highest pait paid executive at facebook. s.e.c. filings show sandburg has more than half her holdings since facebook's ipo in 2012. she says ipo shares under $4

billion. executives often choose to spread out their investments over time. now, even after those sales, sandburg still owes abo owns ab0 million restricted shares of facebook. that's roughly $1 billion. right now, facebook shares just below $44 in frankfurt trading down just slightly today, ross. overall, facebook up big in 2013. executives just taking a little bit of a smaller piece of the pie. >> yeah. now, kayla, take a listen to this, as well. is it time for cheryl sandburg to lean out of facebook? there is a common piece of rob cook by reuters. it says facebook should move on because mark zuckerberg is now doing his own thing. zuckerberg spent a lot of money in recent weeks and this makes it more of a liability for sandburg.

honing in on this piece, kayla, that effectively zuckerberg is serving his interests of die verging with those of sort of the core shareholders. what do you make of that? >> it also says mark zuckerberg is the boss, he has grownup and he doesn't need the adult supervisor he once did. but sandburg was under larry summers, she went to google and then facebook. there has been speculation, albeit what unfounded, that she could be in the running for the ceo role of disney when bob iger does step down several quarters. unclear if that's something we would be in the running for. she has a pretty good gig at facebook. she leaves the office by 5:00 or 6:00 p.m., she gets eight ours

of sleep. don't count her out yet. i think she's pretty happy with what she has. >> taking facebook in an unusual direction. >> and they've used 8% of their common stock to do these deals in the last couple of months and facebook now looks more like a holding company, not necessarily a primarily advertising company. so i don't fault rob cox for drawing that conclusion and maybe it will turn out to be the right one. >> we'll see what happens. thanks for that. have a great day. yahoo! is reportedly in talks to buy the online video service news distribution network for $300 million. the deal could further marissa mayer's service. mdn works with newspapers and online publishers. yahoo! stock in frankfurt down 1.2%. elsewhere, a stellar report caterpillar avoided paying $1

million in u.s. taxes between 2012 by shifting to units in switzerland. lawmakers are holding a hearing this morning. caterpillar used switzerland's low tax rate to book profits from sales of replacement parts made by third parties. the move saves the company $300 million a year in taxes. now, caterpillar says its swiss unit has a large marketing sales presence in geneva and it pays a relatively high effective u.s. tax rate of 29%. as they say, better late than never. open enrollment for president obama's new health care program ended monday night with a last-minute surge of people looking to sign up for insurance. officials say it's likely more than 8 million people enrolled in health plans, but it did the come as healthcare.gov went down twice to monday. in california, there are so many

customers, a key function of its site had to be turned off and to get people to finish applications later. still to come, mary barra prepares to testify reporting gm's faultsy cars, this as 1.5 million vehicles are being recalled. ♪

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good, good. good. over $700 billion dollars in assets under care. let me just put this away. [ male announcer ] how did edward jones get so big? could you teach our kids that trick? [ male announcer ] by not acting that way. ok, last quarter... [ male announcer ] it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪ we understand greece is going together its bailout tranch in three installments. the first at 6.3 billion will come in the second half of april. the second installment in early june of 1 billion and the third installment of 11 billion again in early july.

currently the dow is some 2 points above fair value, under two points higher for the s&p 500 and the nasdaq is just over two points higher. and gm is controlling another 1.5 million vehicles worldwide because of issues with the power steering. the automaker says it expects to take a first quarter charge of up to $750 million due to mostly its latest recall. this comes as the house energy and commerce committee holds the units on faulty ignition switches. lawmakers say they want answers to why gm engineers approved parts that didn't meet the company's standards. the ceo mary barra will testify in her prepared remarks. she doesn't assign fault, but says simply sitting here today, i can't tell you why it took years for the safety defect to be announced, but i can tell you that we will find out. chris malone, managing director at fedelum partners joins us

now. chris, what should mary barra and gm do and say at these hearings? >> well, i can tell you the words i don't know are not going to be well received. and even if mary barra hasn't gotten to the bottom of things and can't say definitively what happens and why it took ten years for them to disclose this the, she can say here is what we've learned so far and here is what we intend to do to get to the bottom of it. despite what we may find, there's no explanation that can be saef whether it relates to the bureaucracy or disfunction or lack of credibility. none of those will be satisfactory answers. they might well find bankruptcy reorganization on to avoid legal and financial liability. if they do that, will that make things better or worse? >> that would make things much worse. and i think that mary barra and gm koo should come out and

pledge voluntarily not to hide behind the bankruptcy or try to limit their legal and financial liability. there is a lot of concern, a lot of frustration, and it will demonstrate that they're willing to do the right thing after benefiting from a huge public bailout in 2009. they're in a stronger financial now than ever before. now is the right time to embrace this crisis as a way to solve the rest of the organizational, cultural and managerial problems. >> so they need to have an external order to an external practice and investigation, to say that we will get someone in to help do this? >> i think that would be wise. that investigation would be subject to client privilege. it is likely that an outside

panel will be necessary and that she should welcome one. >> thanks for that. that's it for "worldwide exchange." "squawk box" is coming up next. .

good morning and welcome to "squawk box." gm's ceo mary barra is about to face council regarding the recall crisis. stocks ending march like a lion, okay, i guess. fed chair janet yellen provides some relief to those fearing a rate hike sooner than expected. and facebook's ceo mark zuckerberg makes more than $3 billion in 2014. figure that is stock appreciation. it is tuesday. and god bless him, by the way. it is tuesday, april 1st, 2014.

"squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen. becky is out this morning. we hope she's going to feel better and hope to see her later this week. ceo mary barra is heading to capitol hill to testify before the energy and commerce committee about last month's recall for an ignition switch. that's scheduled to start at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. among what she's going to say is the following, as soon as i learned about the following, we equity acted without letation. we told the world we had a problem that needed to be fixed. whatever mistakes were made in the past, we will not shirk from